Sure thing. Call you in an hour.
Bao gave the autocab their addresses and it rolled away smoothly; an adlink popped up in the corner of Marisa’s vision, the cab offering to connect her music library to its onboard sound system, but she blinked it away. Sahara had apparently accepted the invitation, as one of her current favorite singers started crooning in the background. Ever the entertainer, Sahara faced her camera nulis directly and started talking, recapping the day in a bubbly final-thoughts speech. If it were any other friend, Marisa would have been hurt, but she knew Sahara was being kind; she was keeping the cameras and the attention on herself, giving Marisa a chance to think in relative privacy. Bao also seemed to sense her need for silence, or was lost in a reverie of his own.
Marisa couldn’t help but fear the worst from her older brother’s message. Maybe what her father said had angered Calaca, and he’d gone to take it out on Chuy? Maybe La Sesenta was overstepping their bounds because of pressure from another gang, and Chuy had been caught in the crossfire? Or maybe it wasn’t Chuy, but his girlfriend or their baby?
Marisa worried herself into a panic, and when she couldn’t stand it anymore she blinked into her djinni’s message history, searching for Chuy’s ID code, and traced it backward to find where the call had initiated. The GPS coordinates placed him in Mirador, within a hundred yards of his apartment—she could narrow it down even closer if she was willing to break a few laws, but the equipment she needed to cover her tracks was at home, and this was enough for now. He was likely calling from home, or close to it, so he was probably safe. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe he’d just seen her talking about him on Sahara’s vidcast, and wanted to say hi. She took a slow, deep breath, and waited.
The autocab dropped her off first, and she gave Bao a hug and Sahara a quick kiss good-bye before stepping out onto the sidewalk. She waved as they drove away, promising to ping them later, and was so preoccupied with thoughts of Chuy that she opened her front door without remembering to engage her “sneak in quietly” protocol; Olaya instantly registered her entrance, updated the family list, and Marisa sighed as she heard a high-pitched “Mari!” from the back of the house. Her youngest sister, Pati, came squealing down the hall and tackled her with a high-speed hug.
“Mari, you’re home so early! Did you have fun? Did you kiss any boys? Was Bao there? Please tell me you didn’t kiss Bao because I love him and he’s mine and you can’t have him.” She was dressed in old jeans—hand-me-downs from Marisa—and a faded Overworld T-shirt.
Marisa sighed, and hugged Pati back before turning toward the stairs. “I didn’t kiss anyone.” Pati hung on tight, making it hard to walk, clutching Marisa tightly around the waist and babbling on without a pause for breath.
“I thought you weren’t going to be home until really late but you came home so soon it’s not even my bedtime yet so we can hang out and I can do your hair and you can teach me how to do my makeup because I always put on too much but you never do you’re gorgeous and I got a new program on my djinni do you want to see it it takes pictures and I can animate them and leave them on shop windows so everyone can see them—”
“You know I’d love to, kiddo, but tonight’s not going to work.” She maneuvered up the stairs as best she could with her sister still wrapped around her, pausing halfway through to kick off her heels. One of the nulis would get them later. “I’ve got some calls to make.”
“Hey, Mari,” said Sandro, leaning against the wall at the top of the stairs. His bedroom was next to hers, and he’d apparently been doing homework when he heard the commotion. At sixteen years old he was nearly Mari’s age, and far more studious and organized than she’d ever been; even now, hours after school was over, he was still in his collared shirt and slacks, arms folded like a younger, male version of their mother. “I heard about La Sesenta and the restaurant, but Mom and Dad won’t tell me anything. You were there?”
Marisa stepped around him, trying to shift Pati to her other side to keep from falling. “Yep. Can’t talk right now—”
“Are you going to practice Overworld?” asked Pati. “I played a little after school but Mami found out and made me unplug right in the middle of a match because I hadn’t done my homework yet. I was trying the new Force Pulse powerset but I couldn’t launch any robots like you did because every time I get close they kill me so I got a ton of deaths but I launched Keldy off a mountain—”